Art world stages battle of beauties

Britain's leading auction houses have clashed over rival versions of an exotic portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds. Will Bennett reports

Jane Baldwin was one of the great beauties of the late 18th century. Emperor Joseph I of Austria was so entranced that he commissioned a portrait bust of her, the Prince of Wales paid her extravagant attention in London and Dr Samuel Johnson asked to kiss her hand.

More than two centuries later, Mrs Baldwin has become the centre of a very different debate about her beauty involving the world's two leading auction houses, one of Britain's best-known aristocrats and rival versions of a painting by the master portraitist Sir Joshua Reynolds.

Today Sotheby's is announcing that it will auction Reynolds's Portrait of Mrs Baldwin in London on July 1 when it is expected to fetch £3-4 million. Prices for works by Reynolds have risen recently and bidding could go higher if the saleroom is as bewitched by the exotic daughter of a Turkish-based English merchant as the Austrian Emperor was.

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Sotheby's is selling the picture on behalf of the Bowood Collection, a family trust set up by the Marquess of Lansdowne to preserve Bowood House, his ancestral home near Calne, Wilts, where Portrait of Mrs Baldwin has hung since the 19th century.

Yet only six months ago Sotheby's rival, Christie's, announced that it was selling Portrait of Mrs Baldwin. This was not the Bowood painting but had surfaced in an American private collection where it had been for more than 50 years.

Christie's, which estimated its picture at a more modest £700,000 to £1 million, knew about the other portrait but energetically promoted its find. "That at Bowood is generally regarded as the prime version but there is, it would seem, no explicit proof of this," it argued in the auction catalogue.

This, together with Christie's statement that its picture "is likely to have been the earlier of the two" did not amuse Lord Lansdowne, who wrote to the auction house. Rumours spread in the art market that the Christie's painting was by Reynolds's studio assistants.

At Christie's there were muttered accusations that Sotheby's had been criticising the painting, but its rival has always strongly denied this and argues that any views it expressed were merely to protect the interests of its client, Lord Lansdowne.

A beauty contest that might have amused Mrs Baldwin was arranged. Francis Russell, a senior director at Christie's, Martin Postle, a Reynolds expert from the Tate, and others took the painting to Bowood and placed it alongside Lord Lansdowne's portrait.

Within days the Christie's portrait was withdrawn from the sale leaving the auction house, which had put the picture on its catalogue cover, severely embarrassed.

The portrait is still at Christie's and has not gone back on the market. John Stainton, director of the British pictures department, said: "We have done a lot of further research on it which has dismissed some of the ideas that were being put about at the time it was withdrawn."

He said the current view was that it was "a work from Reynolds's studio and with the hand of Reynolds himself with studio participation". It is not known exactly how much of the portrait is by the master and how much by his assistants.

Lord Lansdowne denies that the trust's decision to sell the Bowood picture was a result of the other painting's withdrawal. "It was not a factor at all," he said.

"The trust is selling it because the cost of running Bowood, the estate and over 50 listed buildings and monuments has reached a point where resources are desperately short," he said. "It is as simple as that."

Although Lord Lansdowne has diversified his business, running one of Britain's leading golf courses at Bowood, and has sold family papers for more than £2.4 million over the past 20 years, this has not produced enough money to meet rising costs.

"There is no doubt that the Portrait of Mrs Baldwin here is the original Reynolds picture," he said.